Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court refused yesterday to block the deportation of a Chicago
woman and thousands of other immigrants who pleaded guilty in the past to serious crimes and were
not warned by their attorneys that a criminal record targeted them for removal.

The decision highlights the stark consequences for noncitizens of having a criminal record.
Current law calls for mandatory deportation of immigrants, including lawful residents, who have an “
aggravated felony” on their record. The term can describe a variety of state and federal
offenses.

Immigration lawyers say tens of thousands of immigrants, many of them lawful permanent
residents, plead guilty each year to crimes that might lead to them being deported.

Three years ago, the high court ruled that attorneys had a duty to warn noncitizens of the
prospect that a guilty plea would lead to their deportation.

But in a 7-2 ruling yesterday, the justices said their earlier decision cannot be applied
retroactively to extend relief to immigrants who pleaded guilty to serious offenses before
2010.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 in the case of Padilla vs. Kentucky that an attorney’s error in
failing to warn a noncitizen of the consequences of a guilty plea gave the defendant a right to
seek a new trial.

Justice Elena Kagan said that the 2010 ruling amounted to a major change in the law, and the
court has not applied such changes retroactively to old cases.

In another decision yesterday, the court ruled that Michigan cannot retry a defendant whose
arson case had been thrown out by a trial judge who mistakenly required state prosecutors to prove
more than they needed.

The 8-1 decision was a victory for defendant Lamar Evans, who had argued that the Constitution’s
general prohibition against being tried twice for the same crime, known as double jeopardy, barred
a retrial.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority that while all sides agreed that Evans’ trial
judge erred in ordering the defendant’s acquittal midtrial on the basis of a misunderstanding of
state law, the error was “of no moment” for double-jeopardy purposes, even if it created what
Michigan called a “windfall” for the defendant.